-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Normally , its viewers do n't associate `` Eurovision '' with global politics . The annual singing show is a camp retread of the cultural wasteland of the 1970s -- all crashing ballads , gaudy europop and singing penguins . Britain has signaled its contempt for the contest by sending 76-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck as its representative , a man once regarded as a stud but who now looks eerily like one of those Mexican mummies . The crooner was born two decades before Eurovision even started , and it 's touch and go whether he 'll survive the weekend .

However , this year the contest , which holds its finals Saturday , has taken on an unexpected degree of controversy . It is being held in the oil-rich tyranny of Azerbaijan , and while contestants were warming up their acts this week , pro-democracy demonstrators were getting beaten in the streets of Baku . The annual singing contest draws an audience of 125 million across Europe , so the dictatorial regime of Ilham Aliyev had hoped to use it as an opportunity to sell his country to the world . Instead it has been a public relations disaster .

Explainer : What is Eurovision ?

Arguably , the outrages in Azerbaijan have exposed a hidden dimension of Eurovision . It is and always has been a very political event . That 's more obvious this year than most because the politics of Europe are so blatantly and unavoidably polarized .

The most obvious problem is one of definition . What on Earth , you might ask , is a central Asian country like Azerbaijan doing in a contest called Eurovision ? Nothing about contemporary Azerbaijan marks it out as distinctly European -- it 's Islamic , undemocratic and many , many miles away from the continent .

It 's in the contest by an accident of history : Azerbaijan used to be part of the Soviet Union . Its leaders desperately wish to claim some European identity because they want to participate in capital and labor markets -- something that should , theoretically , encourage democracy . But Ilham Aliyev also wants to retain the integrity of a classic Asian despotism . As the European Union engages farther eastward , through Turkey , it has to deal with nations and cultures like these that do n't precisely fit its Western , liberal template .

There are plenty of divides within continental Europe itself . Voting has always been political . Britain 's 1997 victory was widely interpreted as a `` thumbs up '' for having elected the popular liberal leader , Tony Blair ; its defeat in 2003 was punishment for the Iraq War . Likewise , Eurovision has traditionally operated a buddy system . Nordic countries often vote for each other and Cyprus typically favors Greece . In a way , that 's a good thing , because it means that no matter how awful an entry is , someone is duty bound to vote for it . Britain has been bailed out by faithful little Malta several times .

But the end of the Cold War dramatically enhanced the role of politics and favoritism in voting . For many of the new , Eastern participants -- particularly in the war-torn Balkans -- Eurovision became an extension of diplomacy , used to cement alliances with Russia or make amends with former enemies . Songs about regional reconciliation were touching when they debuted in the early 1990s . But now they elicit groans from West European voters because they are interpreted as a plea for geographic solidarity .

The results support the contention that this has become an Eastern group hug . From 2001 to 2011 , seven out of 11 winners have been Eastern , with a strong preference for the former Soviet bloc -LRB- the pattern is just as pronounced in the junior contest -RRB- .

Such is the frustration of Western countries that many of them have opted to send novelty acts . Sometimes that accidentally works -LRB- Finland 's Hard Rock Hallelujah was surely a joke , yet it came in first in 2006 -RRB- , but it often means the folks back home end up humiliated . Britain 's longstanding Eurovision presenter , Terry Wogan , quit the show in disgust after the UK 's entrant , who was black , received only 14 points in 2008 . Blaming the result on East European racial prejudice , Wogan observed that a contest invented in the 1950s to forge a sense of unity in the Cold War era has actually become a symbol of how polarized the new Europe is .

And how poor , too . Spain 's entrant , Pastora Soler , has admitted that it would be better if she did n't win on Saturday because she was n't sure that her country could afford to host the contest . Struggling with soaring debt and unemployment , this former economic miracle is now a pauper state . Directors from Spain 's broadcaster , TVE , sent a message to Soler that read , `` Please , do n't win ! '' Never has a sadder truth been spoken in jest .

Eurovision was probably at its most hopeful and exciting in the early 1990s , when Europe was emerging from the nightmare of the Cold War and it had fantasies of a prosperous , democratic , unified future . But Azerbaijan in 2012 offers a very different vision . Modern Europe is struggling to integrate countries that have little cultural affinity for it , it is divided by regional loyalties and it is still a long , long way from recovering from the Credit Crunch .

The European dream has ended ; the fat lady stopped singing years ago .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Timothy Stanley .

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Timothy Stanley : Eurovision is campy , unserious and this year has taken on more controversy

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He says host Azerbaijan has squelched pro-democracy protests , made bad PR

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He says Azerbaijan not even in Europe , contest marred by politics , skews to Eastern bloc

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Stanley : Contest also reflects polarization of Europe